Started peppers, eggplants, and lots of tomatoes today! This is my first time starting any of those things from seed, and I hope it goes well because starting from seed means lots and lots of fun variety options :)

This year, we are eating no processed sugar. What started as a personal resolution has snowballed into a healthy eating shift for the whole family that goes way beyond no sugar.
When planning for this change, I really wanted to set us up for consistency and success by figuring out healthy indulgences for occasions like holidays and birthdays, because that's always been when we fall off our resolutions. So we made this for 💝 Valentine's day - homemade chocolate made with cacao and honey, and used that chocolate for chocolate strawberries🍓 and homemade almond butter cups! They are so genuinely good, all my kids said they were yummier than our favorite store bought candy- even my incredibly picky eater! I agree, and am so glad to have figured out a way to celebrate with treats without the risk of falling back into unhealthy habits ❤️

Sprouts are always super exciting to me, especially the first ones of the year :) These are Napa, lettuce, and kale. Planting peppers and eggplant later this week :)
I can't figure out why I have what I think is some fungal growth (the white stuff), when all my materials were new and clean. Hopefully it doesn't affect my plants - I'm still pretty new to this :)

Took some puzzling to figure out how to fit all the varieties, but between an expansion in one of the beds and having a separate herb garden this year (not shown here), we can make everything fit! So, so excited!!! If you're interested in my nerdy diagrams, the green lines are trellises and an arch, the light green crops are about to be planted, and the purple varieties are the summer garden :)

My motivation this week has been to do everything well so I have some time this weekend to curl up with these books. Most weeks I end up with a long weekend to-do list, but a restful weekend is so nice, and I'm so eager to get to spend time with this stack of beautiful books :)

My awesome husband, after watching me painstakingly struggle to figure out how to fit just one plant of each variety in the garden this year, offered me space to build another bed that will give me so much more space! I've already taken over a good chunk of the yard, and he really prefers grass in the yard, so I wasn't going to ask for more but I'm so so grateful to have it ❤️ ❤️❤️

I love our local co-op for staple foods! I got these organic beans, peas and popcorn for a fraction of the price I would have paid in any store. Azure Standard is a once a month drop off, and they carry pretty much everything you would get at a grocery store. We find that they have an especially good price on things like grains and beans :) Do you use a bulk food co-op? If so, what's it called?

So grateful to still be harvesting from the garden in mid January! We've been enjoying bok choy, lots of lettuce, and other tasty greens. We're also getting ready to start some early seeds indoors in a week or so!

#foodprepsunday A little food prep makes the week go so much more smoothly, but I don't want the Lord's Day to be chaotic and busy. So I prep some foods that either soak or simmer all day. This week it's bone broth, sourdough bread, soaking and cooking several pounds of 2 kinds of beans, and getting a 15 pound brisket soaking in the best ever brine so we can make mountains of corned beef hash next weekend! Oh, and an adorable little dancer entertaining me while I cook!
Do you have any food prep tips?

Cooking date night! We are going to be crafting lots of new (to us) foods from many different cultures (I talk about this in my first blog post, link in bio). We're using the book "How to Cook Everything" for our recipes.
Our first pick was "chicken under a brick", which is apparently Italian. It was seriously amazing! I discovered too late that I need a much bigger frying pan to do this... Also we subbed cast iron pans for the bricks... Looked completely ridiculous but totally worked :) I've been pretty good at cooking good food since I was a kid, and my hubby is still mastering the basics- so we split tasks. He invented a buttery, delicious saute that helped him practice his chopping and flavoring skills, while I learned how to cut the spine out of a chicken and cook it in the silliest looking, most delicious way possible :)

Snow pea tips. This amazing green is usually hard to find in stores and is expensive (and not fresh) when it can be found at all. But it's SO easy to grow! Simply start some pea plants, and let them get tall enough that you can take the top off it without killing the plant, so it will keep growing. Lightly sauté the greens with a bit of oil and garlic... It seriously smells like spring when it starts cooking, so it's been wonderful to have on these cold days when I'm dreaming of warmer days and planting time :)